*
Gru sat by the train window, resting her chin on the sill.
‘A thrilling train journey!’
The tranquil scenery of a village slipped past outside the window.
‘I wonder what it would have been like if I’d come with the guild master.’
Jurim’s face floated gently through her mind.
‘I want to go home soon.’
The squirrel farm and spending time with Uncle and Big Brother Serhi had all been fun, but… she had still missed him the whole time.
‘I promised I’d bring him candy, too.’
There had been ‘Dungeon Is an Open Door,’ as well as an item that could help her escape. She had intended to briefly distract Ham Hong-gi and get away, but the dungeon’s unique nature had delayed her much longer than expected.
Was the guild master very angry? If he got super, super angry and scolded Gru harshly, would he still hug her at the end?
Even if she found her real mother and father?
“……”
Gru hugged her bag to her chest and sank deep into thought.
Siwon, sitting beside her, was writing something in a notebook, while Serhi, sitting across from them, quietly gazed out the window.
It was Serhi who broke the silence.
“You came to Korea chasing Gnosis, didn’t you?”
“Huh? Ah, yes. Is it that obvious?”
“Why chase them that far? Because Cyrus was ruined because of Gnosis?”
Siwon pressed his lips together and blinked twice with a vacant expression.
“……”
“Never mind. You don’t have to tell me.”
“My sister…”
He briefly closed his mouth, as if choosing his words.
“My sister is Gnosis. What happened to Cyrus was her doing.”
After dropping that shocking revelation, he smiled meekly, and Serhi froze in place.
Gru, who had been eavesdropping beside them, opened her mouth wide. Had she really just heard something incredible?
“My sister became Gnosis, and I didn’t even know. I knew nothing, and I couldn’t do anything… So I’m going to deal with Gnosis with my own hands.”
“You’re saying you’ll kill all of Gnosis?”
Siwon glanced at Gru before simply giving a faint smile. He did not say it aloud because there was a child present, but that was what he meant.
Gru read the answer in Siwon’s smile. Could that appearance of his when they first met have been the blood of Gnosis, too?
‘A little scary.’
In front of Gru, he was gentle, kind, and clumsy. Could that strangely inscrutable side she had sensed despite all that have been because of these circumstances?
Dying was frightening. And killing someone was frightening, too.
What if the person she had to kill was family? She did not even want to imagine it.
‘It must be terribly sad.’
With her ears drooping, Gru hugged Siwon’s arm as if to comfort him.
As though he could read Gru’s feelings, Siwon put an arm around her shoulders and patted her.
Leaning against his shoulder, Gru peeked at the notebook.
A symbol was drawn on one of the photographs clipped inside.
“Master Uncle, what’s this?”
“Ah, this… If you ever see something like this, you have to be careful. Don’t go near it. Understand?”
“What is it?”
“It’s a mark used by Gnosis.”
“Gnosis…”
The bad villains. The Gnosis that Master Uncle was trying to kill…
Gru stared quietly at the symbol of Gnosis for a long time.
*
Clack. Clack.
Though darkness had fallen, the train continued racing tirelessly along the tracks.
[Updating…….]
Gru took Mephisto out of her bag and placed it in her inner pocket. Thanks to Mephisto’s warm body heat, warmth blossomed around her heart.
After packing a few more things from her bag, Gru was crouching in front of the door to Serhi’s compartment when it happened.
Before long, a long shadow fell over her head.
“Yellow Gru, why are you sitting like that?”
“I’m thinking. Until my head is this full.”
“You’re too little to be thinking about anything. Stop talking nonsense and go inside to sleep.”
Tsk, Gru pouted. Curling her body into a small, round ball, she said feebly,
“…Gru is lonely.”
“Are you cold?”
“…?”
Why was he suddenly asking if she was cold? Could it be?
“Chilly?”
“Yeah, that. I’m asking if you’re chilly.”
Gru crooked her lips into a pout.
“Lonely and chilly are different.”
“You’re seriously annoying… Hey, it’s your native language. What was it? Even if we took a dictation test, you and I probably wouldn’t be that far apart.”
“Gru is four years old.”
Fuck. He had lost.
The two argued for a little while over whether Serhi knew Russian and whether Gru knew squirrel language, then called a truce.
“How old are you, Big Brother Serhi?”
“Sixteen.”
“That’s the same as Big Brother Dan.”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“Actually, I don’t know. I barely remember anything from when I was little.”
His first memory was of lying on a cold medical bed in a laboratory.
The researchers had told him, who was breathing heavily, that he had only barely survived and had held on well, but—
‘That?’
Wouldn’t it have been better if he had simply died then?
After his heart stopped and started again, he could remember neither his name nor his age. His memories of the past were hazy and patchy, while the repeated terror and resignation had been engraved deep within his body.
The researchers smiled and explained things once more to the test subject, who could not even properly remember what was being done to him.
“This is a sacrifice for humanity.”
An awakening project for humanity’s sake.
The mechanism of awakening, and whether the skills granted by the system could be arbitrarily adjusted—those were the questions and objectives they had.
The researchers called Serhi Number 156.
“Number 156, come outside.”
“Number 156, hurry and use your power.”
Ironically, the day Number 156 succeeded in the experiment was the day the laboratory collapsed.
“We did it.”
“We can reproduce it again!”
As he watched the delighted researchers, Serhi merely sat blankly on the bed.
The researchers were so excited that they failed to notice the laboratory shaking, and rubble began to patter down over them.
“What, what is this? It’s collapsing!”
“Evacuate!”
“Get Number 156 first! Hurry!”
At the same moment the researchers roughly seized Serhi by the wrist, their bodies crumpled to the ground like dolls.
“……”
Serhi only watched it all with a calm expression.
Then, crossing the laboratory as it collapsed over the corpses, a blond woman approached him.
“Do you want to come with me?”
Behind her, the laboratory that had seemed impossible to escape from forever was crumbling apart like a gingerbread house.
It was only after leaving the laboratory while holding Irina’s hand that Serhi chose a new name and age.
For his name, he used the name of the owner of a nearby bakery. As for his age…
“What a lovely child. How old is your friend?”
It was when a shop assistant at a clothing store asked him that.
“Irina. How old do you think I am?”
“You? Hmm… You look about thirteen.”
In the mirror before the fitting room stood a child with eyes of different colors, staring back at him.
“Thirteen…”
That was how he decided it. He would be thirteen years old.
“It doesn’t matter, does it? Your age, your name.”
Gru blinked once at his calm tone.
“Gru’s birthday is fake, too.”
“Why is it fake?”
“Gru’s birthday is the day the orphanage director brought Gru there. December 3.”
They had told her she had been abandoned in front of the orphanage on a day when snow was falling heavily. Inside the tightly wrapped bundle, all that had remained was a slip of paper bearing the name ‘Han Gru’…
“So Gru’s name is real. That’s why Gru likes it.”
Gru spoke as though she were truly happy.
Serhi let out an awkward breath and roughly tousled Gru’s hair.
“…Looks like you’ve had a hard time in your own way, too.”
Heehee, Gru smiled sheepishly.
“Big Brother Serhi, put Gru to sleep.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You’ve been sleeping just fine on your own until now.”
Gru buried her face in his arm with a sullen expression.
“Gru is lonely. Haaaaa… Gru wants to see the guild master.”
He stared at her and let out another deep sigh.
In the end, Serhi lifted Gru into his arms with an expression that said he had no choice.
‘Heehee.’
Lying on Serhi’s bed with the blanket pulled up to her neck, Gru hugged it and broke into a broad smile.
“What makes you so happy?”
“Because Big Brother pats me.”
“I haven’t done it yet.”
“Because you’re going to.”
Tsk, Serhi clicked his tongue and patted her chest out of rhythm.
Though he pretended otherwise, and though he had a foul mouth, Serhi was not a bad person.
‘When they first met, he even saved Gru.’
Gru remembered Serhi stopping her from opening the door at the auction house.
The relationship that had continued to this day had all begun with Serhi’s kindness.
Above all, being registered as a guardian meant that he had no disqualifying factors.
He was not dangerous as a guardian.
So maybe there had been some misunderstanding…
“Now go to sleep already.”
“Big Brother Serhi…”
“Yeah.”
“…Are you Gnosis?”
Clatter, clatter—the train thundered roughly along the tracks.